


The Truths I Questioned

by keep_waking_up



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always-a-Girl!Sam, F/F, F/M, Genderbending, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:56:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keep_waking_up/pseuds/keep_waking_up
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like all children, I grew up knowing that at some point I'd had a mother.  My craving for normalcy came from the simple fact that I couldn't remember mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

For you, there'll be no more crying,

For you, the sun will be shining,

And I feel that when I'm with you,

It's alright, I know it's right

-Songbird, Fleetwood Mac

 

Like all children, I grew up with the knowledge that at some point I'd had mother. That I'd been cuddled and cooed over and pressed up against warm flesh as I went to sleep. Unlike most children, I grew up with the sensation of sticky blood pooling on my forehead and vague wisps of memory that involved a white woman suspended on the ceiling. My first taste of normal mixed in with my first experience with the supernatural. When I thought about it, which I tried not to do, I was pretty sure where my craving for normalcy came from. It was the sure and simple fact that I couldn't remember mine.

My first true memory, because nightmares don't count, is bathed in moonlight. Me curled in the backseat of the Impala, watching the pale reflection of my brother's golden-bronze hair in the window as my father lectured about poltergeists from the front seat. I was four. Dean was eight. My father at that point was more of a formidable shadow than anything. He wasn't the one who told me stories to keep away the nightmares or brushed my hair. No, he was the Hunter. It was Dean's job to take care of the leftover pieces of the life we'd left behind.

It wasn't until I was seven or eight myself that I had a concept of a father was supposed to be. We were in a shopping mall, somewhere in the midwest, when I saw a man and his two children, a boy and a girl. There wasn't anything special about it, nothing to differentiate the scene from a million others like it. But I saw the warmth of the father's smile as he looked down at his baby girl and I thought I understood how ordinary people must feel when exposed to the supernatural. It was as if I'd had a glimpse into a whole new world. Oh, I thought, and I gripped Dean's hand a little tighter. That was what family was supposed to be.

I'd only been a little younger when I figured out most older brothers weren't like Dean. We'd settled down in Florida, waiting out the winter and going to school while Dad drove up and down the coastline, hunting what he could find. We wouldn't have stopped at all if Dad hadn't realized that despite Dean's diligent lessons, an eleven-year-old could only teach me so much.

Every day, Dean would walk me to school, a joking, comforting presence at my side. And he was always there to pick me up at the end of the day as well, ruffling the shaggy hair on my head that he'd cut himself and saying, "Fight any demons today, Sammy?" The other girls in my class looked on with fascination, something almost akin to envy. It wasn't until little Marcie Meyer's mom brought her older brother with her one day that I understood their intrigue. A year older than my brother, the Meyer boy was an awkward, pimply preteen, with his hands shoved in his pockets as he scowled in disdain at the rest of us. Midway through the day, he called Marcie a bitch, in a tone Dean never used around me, and she burst out crying. When Dean picked me up that afternoon, I pulled at his secondhand jacket and told him about it. I asked him why we weren't like that. Why we were different. He looked down on me solemnly, with the guarded face he used long before he started to joke his emotions away. "We can't be that way, Sammy," he said, and my seven-year-old brain knew better than to question him. Because there were some truths in our lives that we didn't - couldn't - question.

And I suppose that's where it all began. When I started to question.


	2. Chapter One

If we were children I would bake you a mud pie

Warm and brown beneath the sun

Never learned to climb a tree but I would try

Just to show you what I'd done

-What I Wouldn't Do, A Fine Frenzy

I could separate my life into five distinct sections. The Before, the Innocence, the Defiance, the Escape, and the Fallout. I could only remember four of the five, but it was always important that there was something Before, because there had to be something other than this, something other than the supernatural. I clung to the Before I was barely cognizant of, and kept clinging until it was torn from me.

But I wasn't always like that. During the time of the Innocence, I didn't know better. I was Samantha Winchester, born in blood and flame in my nursery, and therefore I existed to Hunt. Regardless that girls weren't supposed to be Hunters, according to their creed. I was to follow in my father's footsteps, in Dean's footsteps, even if they were men's shoes. And I wasn't about to be left behind.

And I wasn't going to put up with the sneers and condescension of the numerous hand-to-hand combat teachers my father subjected me to, or the gun folk, or the swordsmen. If there was a weapon, I was going to faster it, even though I was smaller, weaker, a girl. My first few days in George Chambers's close quarters combat class were hell, as I struggled with my nine-year-old limbs to strike at boys twice my size several years younger. While my father frowned, and George Chambers simply shook his head, it was Dean who painstakingly worked with me while my father was out hunting, teaching me dirty little tricks to defeat even the largest opponents. He came at me again and again, until I'd managed to slither out of his hold enough times and land enough blows to throw him to the ground. With a bloody nose, he'd smile up at me, and allow me a scoop of ice cream before I went to bed.

A month after I started at George Chambers's, I could take out anyone in my age group with ease and give the level up a run for their money. The old Marine had patted my head with a toothy grin and called me 'stubborn as a mule'. He was right. If there was one thing I had inherited from my father, it was stubbornness.

My father's lack of interest only propelled my own determination. Even though I'd never wanted to be a Hunter, even during the time of Innocence, I fought tooth and nail to excel at anything I was ordered to do. Even when all I wanted to do was play soccer, I stood with my feet planted shoulder-length apart, rifle trained at the target in front of me, shooting missiles of salt at it while my father watched on, only speaking to correct my stance or aim. I gritted my teeth until I couldn't take it anymore, and that was when Dad and I had our first fight over his choice of life. We moved out of town two days later. I went on my first hunt a week's time after that.

I was young, only twelve. I didn't do much of the actual hunt work. It was Dean and Dad who went off, and I was left behind with instructions to 'guard the car', much as Dean had always been instructed to 'take care of Sammy'. Whenever he left me, he always sent one glance back, as if to reaffirm where I was, solidify the fact that he could find me if anything went wrong. And he always did. I didn't shoot anything other than a target for years, because it was always Dean between me and the rest of the world, fending off the nightmares, dreams or corporeal, with an iron knife and silver bullets.

It was when I joined the Hunt that I began to notice the changes in my brother. Puberty had barely touched me at thirteen. My legs were long and limby, my chest as flat as my brother's. With my hair chopped short, a chin-length shag, and my hunter's clothing, I could've passed for a boy. Luckily, I didn't have the pimples and awkward jumps in voice that most boys of my age went through. But Dean was entirely different story. Perhaps it was the hunting, but something must have exhausted his body so much that all the junk food in the world couldn't put a dot on that face. He grew up easily, his body's changes adding grace instead of taking it away. At seventeen, he was better-looking and more charming than most men were at twenty-five, and he used that to his full advantage.

He'd been too distracted by me, and Hunting, and school up until that point to really notice his hormones. But as soon as I started hunting, two of his duties merged into one, and once he'd finished chemistry, he saw no reason for a high school diploma either, dropping out without looking back, as far as I could tell. With time on his hands, I noticed a drastic change in my older brother. He'd always had an eye for women, just never the time. Once the time was handed over to him on a silver platter, he took full advantage. Our days fell into an odd sort of weekly routine once we were settled in a town. During my school day, he helped Dad hunting. He'd pick me up when school got out and train while I did my homework. Just before seven, he'd shove something microwavable in, and ten minutes after seven, the two of us would eat. Our father rarely ever showed. Around eight or nine, Dad and Dean would head out if it was a hunting night, sometimes taking me along. The days after those trips, I went to school yawning and bedheaded, and the whispers about me being 'strange' became ever louder. On the nights when it wasn't time for hunting, Dean would wait for Dad to hole up in his room, he was always in there by ten, and then wink at me, ducking outside. I'd hear the rev of a car's engine, and later that night, he would come in to the room we shared in whatever apartment or motel we were staying at, smelling of alcohol and something else I wasn't quite sure of. I awoke every time and it would again come to my mind that perhaps it wasn't normal, for kids of our age and gender to still room together, but in that moment I'd be relieved, because it meant I could be sure that he came back safe every night.

The end of the Innocence came with my childhood, and the time of Defiance came roaring in, with puberty right on its heels. Six months after my first time dealing with a spirit on my own, and I was wearing my first real bra, the product of an hour of internet research and a midnight run to the mall while my brother was out. The places we stayed became filled with the sounds of slamming doors and raised voices, as Dad and I duked it out. I wanted to stay in one school, I wanted to study Shakespeare instead of ancient Latin banishing rituals. I wanted be on varsity soccer. I didn't want to Hunt. And Hunting was all my father was capable of wanting anymore.

Dean didn't get involved in our fights. It was probably one of the only things in my life he didn't get involved in. He just stood on the sidelines, only coming into the room that was finally just mine, since he'd started sharing with Dad, afterwards to sit on the bouncy springs of my mattress and smoke a cigarette as I fumed. "You know where Dad's coming from," he'd say, and I did, I just didn't give enough of a shit anymore. "It makes me feel better when you're with us on the Hunt," he'd say next, and beneath his teasing grin, I knew he wasn't lying. Sighing, I'd pluck the cigarette out of his hands and throw it out the window, and say if I was going to keep hunting for him, he'd damn well better stop smoking in my room. And so I Hunted for Dean. And I didn't think about the whys of it too hard, because there were some truths in our lives that we didn't - couldn't - question.

Except I was questioning. As soon as I entered high school, if not before, I took to questioning our family's every move, every decision, every reason. I pushed and pulled at the delicate strings of the web that Dad, or Dean, had managed to erect after my mother's death, until they snapped and something new had to be built in their place.

And I remember when the first new string was strung into place.

We were on a Hunt, a long Hunt, over the three day weekend school had given me. I'd still had to be dragged along, because I knew, as did they, that there was no way this Hunt would only take three days, and I was not looking forward to the make-up work when I got back to school. If I got back to school. There was always a chance my father could pick up another trail and uproot us again, whether because he honestly didn't care or to prove a point, I wasn't sure. Fourteen and a half, and I was in the backseat hunched over my Biology textbook while my brother and father sat up front talking monsters and spirits.

It was supposed to be a simple job. The town had been experiencing what seemed to be wild animal attacks, but we knew better. Werewolves had come to town, and the next night was the first full moon of the month, so our trunk was loaded chock-full of silver bullets and their favored shot-guns. We settled in at a crappy motel in a room with only two queen sized beds, so my brother and father had to share, while I got a whole bed to myself, all five-foot-four of me. I spent the good part of an hour trying not to laugh as Dean made exaggerated faces at me from the other bed, showing exactly why two six-foot tall men should not share a bed. Later, I realized it had all been part of my brother's designs to lift my spirits, and it certainly worked, because I fell asleep with a smile on my lips and my brother's silly faces still in mind.

The next night saw me in entirely different spirits, because we were Hunting, and I'd been set to watch the car, again. As if to console me, Dean had left me his favorite gun, a Colt 1911, and I stood leaning against the car, holding it loosely in my hand. My homework was in the backseat, but even I wasn't headstrong and foolish enough to bring it out there. A distracted Hunter was easy prey. On a Hunt, the only thing your mind could be on was the Hunt.

And it was a good thing I was focused that night too. The werewolf had been leading my father and brother in circles, it turned out, and caught my scent. It burst through the undergrowth, and all that was on my mind was that I had never seen a real werewolf before, and how could I possibly find the time to aim and shoot when I had thatcharging me. I could practically feel its claws on me when my arm finally jerked up and I shot three bullets right into its skull. It collapsed to the ground only ten feet from me, and in the aftershock of the bullets, my breathing seemed harsh and loud.

It was Dean who found me first, only seconds later. He took one look at the situation, and grabbed me, pulling me tightly up into his arms. I shook with dry sobs, and all I could think was that this was real, that I'd almost just died, and no Hunt my father and brother ever did was any safer. I clutched my arms around his neck and and began pressing tiny, frantic kisses over his face because he was alive, and I was alive, and any day now one of us could be dead, what with the profession our family was in.

"Sam," he said, pulling away, but I didn't want to hear what he had to say, no matter how comforting, because nothing could possibly sooth these feelings caught in my throat. I pressed my lips to his, eating up any words that could possibly have come out.

I think we both realized at the same time what was going on. We both froze, still connected, Dean's dry, plump lips still pressed against mine. My brother's lips. Having any lips touching mine in the first place was an oddity and I was the one that jerked back first, to stare shocked into green-brown eyes that were just like my mother's, fuck, just like mine. For once, my older brother didn't seem any wiser than I did. He just stood and stared, still cradling me in his arms like nothing could ever make him let me go.

It wasn't until we heard a rustling in the bushes that Dean abruptly set me down, brushing off his jacket and moving towards Dad with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Look what Sammy bagged," he said, and I would've thought nothing was wrong if I didn't know my brother better than I knew myself.

He's my brother, I thought, and still my fingers drifted towards my lips. And I began to question.


	3. Chapter Two

You're the direction I follow to get home

When I feel like I can't go on you tell me to go

And it's like I can't feel a thing without you around

-6 Months, Hey Monday

Either we were less fucked up than I'd thought, or more so, because we didn't talk about it. I'm sure the healthier things to do would've been to sit down and have a chat about why siblings just didn't do things like that, but I woke up the next morning to my brother's grinning face as he ruffled my hair and gave me my first beer at ten in the morning. It was as if nothing had changed as I swung out a fist and cuffed his arm, before pulling my sheets back over my head and dozing off once again.

The changes were so subtle, I almost didn't notice them at first. Tucking away this little secret was no trouble. Every Winchester learned to keep their secrets and keep them well, because ghosts and the supernatural were not things you talked about in public unless you wanted to be cuffed and locked away for psychological help. But the incident had awoken my long dormant hormones. I couldn't help but notice it at school, as one boy's broad shoulders or another's toothy grin would catch my eye. I finally felt a little bit normal, as I snuck glances at boys from across the classroom, and wondered how, exactly, their kisses might differ from my brother's.

But boys across the classroom weren't the only ones to capture my interest. A door I'd never noticed before had opened momentarily in my mind, and now I couldn't help but sneak glances back at it, no matter how wrong my brain screamed it was. My brother's form, as warm and familiar to me as it had ever been, had somehow become fascinating. I noticed the way his shoulders had filled out, the bulky muscle that wrapped around his biceps, so big that when he flexed, I would've had a hard time fitting both hands around it. His shirtless ventures around the house, something I'd never really noticed before, became an endless temptation. I knew he felt my eyes trailing him, as his back tightened with tension and his spine pulled a little bit straighter. And most days, when I wasn't looking, I could feel his gaze burning right back.

There was a tiny part of me that wondered if the kiss, a byproduct of adrenaline and relief, had really started all of it. If, perhaps, I'd always had this inkling of a feeling, and it had revealed itself then because of opportunity. But there were still some truths I didn't - couldn't - question. So I locked the thought away, pushing it down into my mind with that much more strength every time it tried to resurface.

Three months of this unspoken thing hovering between us, and I brought home a boy. My first boy. Tall and bold, with big hands and feet. He'd sat behind me in math and we'd been working on a project. He was one of the only people I spoke to at this new school I'd been at for three weeks. He'd known me long enough to be intrigued by the fact I didn't say much, but not long enough to be put off by all my baggage. The project over, I'd taken him up on his flirting and invited him back to my place, because there was nothing that would piss off my father more than coming home to see his baby girl on the sofa with a boy and not cleaning her guns.

I liked him too. I liked the way his hands carted through my hair, a little bit nervous as he leaned in, his breath fresh with mint. I liked the tentative touch to my waist, the trembling lips brushing once against my own, before pulling back to make sure I was okay. The second kiss, slightly more confident as we met midway and I wrapped my arms around his neck. It was sweet, and I hadn't had much of that in my life.

A tongue brushed over my lower lip and then the front door was swinging open and twin pairs of boots stopped dead in the doorway as they saw me. Pulling away from the boy, I saw the twitch in my father's jaw and tried out my sweetest smile, the one that showed off my dimple as I thanked the boy for coming with a kiss on the cheek and promptly escorted him out. As soon as I closed the door behind him, my father burst out in anger, his speech preluded by the "Samantha Jane Winchester" that I'd always taken to mean I'd well and truly pushed his buttons this time. He lectured about responsibility, about honesty, about privacy, and then moved into the more squishy things. We went to get birth control the next day, although I'd only just kissed a boy, nothing like the hoards Dean claimed to have bedded.

I had no idea what my brother thought of all this. He stayed out of our fights, but this time there was no smoking in my room as I sulked afterwards. It was only after we had left that town for another, a week later while Dad was out, that he sat down with me as I glared at The Catcher in the Rye. He propped his brown booted feet up on the table and linked his hands behind his head with a grin that meant I was in for teasing or a prank. Either way, I knew well enough to shut the book and give him my attention, just in case.

"Sammy," he started out, just to irritate me. "You ever hear of a bedroom? They're great places, complete with beds, and oh yeah, doors that lock, and-"

I threw my pencil at him, just because I could, and snapped my book back open. "Dude, shut up. I'm not like you-"

"No shit. I mean, we both know there's only one of us with a head on our shoulders in these matters-"

"And you think its you, Mr. I'll-climb-in-the-window-at-one-in-the-morning-and-we'll-all-just-pretend-it-didn't-happen?" I was going for condescending, but I had a feeling my retort came out more jealous and bratty than anything.

Knowing he was winning, he smiled even wider, rocking the chair back easily. "Yep. Here's rule number one, Sammy: don't do that shit in the house."

He actually sounded kind of serious about that one, and I realized it must've been awkward for him to walk in on his little sister kissing someone. Especially considering-... I shoved a stray strand of wavy dark hair back behind my ear. I'd been growing it out, but I'd never had long hair and had never realized what a pain it could be. "We weren't going to actually do anything," I admitted grudgingly, because this was Dean, and he probably knew anyways.

"Still." And he stood up, message imparted. "I'm going out to play pool later. You wanna come with?"

Playing pool I was good at. Playing pool I liked. Playing pool meant he was wasn't off sleeping around or Hunting. "Yeah, whatever." I kept my eyes on him as he walked away, loving the grace of his gait, the way his hair sat on the back of his neck.

It was that night that we crossed that line for the second time. After the bar closed, we shuffled out to the Impala, Dean thumbing lazily through the bills he'd collected for the night. I'd taken my spot on the right side of the car's hood, leaning up against him as the chill of the night finally began to touch me. I inhaled the smell of him, the musty leather, smoke, and barest hint of gasoline that I had always associated with my brother, my caretaker, my guard, my leader, my everything. And then I moved my lips up and pressed them on the leather of his shoulder.

Even though I wasn't touching his bare skin, he stiffened. "Sam," he said, my name a warning if I'd ever heard one. I knew when to back off. We drove back in a silence that was hardly easy, but wasn't tense either. It was just quiet. Especially for Dean, who didn't know when to shut up sometimes.

My family had a hazy sense of morals and boundaries in the first place, especially in my case, because I'd never lived with the rest of the world's harsh barriers that I could remember. My father killed things, sometimes people if he had to, on a weekly basis. We broke laws, drove through things other people would get squeamish about with ease. This one taboo was becoming particularly flimsy as Dean and I danced around the limits of it.

Just after I turned fifteen, we were in Maine for the fall. Fifteen, with perky little breasts that gave me no cleavage at all and long legs I just didn't know what to do with. Five-five, and unlikely to grow any taller, but still not grown into my size. If I looked in the mirror, I could see the layers of baby fat falling away, the definitions of what would soon be an woman's face underneath. I poked and prodded and my body, still amazed to see any type of curves at all as my waist began to dip in above slim hips.

I took to running, joining the track and cross-country teams at whatever high school I ended up at for a month. It was one sport my father approved off, because, much as he hated to admit it, you were going to spend at least half the time running away from the supernatural before you could figure out a way to vanquish it. It was four months after my fifteenth birthday that I managed to drag Dean out on a run with me. The air was crisp but warm as we jogged side by side through the woods just outside of the small town we were nestled away in while Dad finished his jobs in this area. At the end of the four mile stretch, I challenged him to a race to the top of a hill we were climbing. My legs pumped as I strained to outrun him, using every bit of agility and speed I'd had to cultivate in order to Hunt. When I reached the top of the hill a second ahead of him I let out a victory yell, beating lightly on his shoulders when he arrived, beaming because I had beat him, I bested my big brother, and this had never happened before. Especially not in anything Hunt related. And he was twirling me through the air, so, so proud, the next thing I knew I was leaning down and he was drawing me closer and we were kissing.

It wasn't a momentary thing either. No pulling back this time, as I relaxed into his hold and did my best to keep up with his intensity. His kisses were nothing like the boys I'd had briefly before. Strong, confident with years of experience, dangerous in a way that made me shiver, like a hurricane that was just offshore or a fire contained in a glass globe. I knew every bit of him was focused solely on me, and there was nothing more terrifying than that thought.

It was several minutes later that we drew apart and I found my feet firmly set on the ground again. He looked down at me as I gazed up, afraid to speak for fear I would say the wrong thing. His hand came up to rub at the back of his neck, and he paced away, glancing back at me with an expression torn between amusement and shock. "Well, shit," is what he finally came up with and I laughed at the absurdity of it all, at exactly how screwed up this was, at how many lines we had driven over, over how much I continued to question it all. I grinned back up at him, because, damn it, I was happy, and he leaned down to kiss me again and that was that.

And because we were less fucked up, or more so, we didn't talk about it after that.


	4. Chapter Three

Forgive me, first love, but I'm tired

I need to get away to feel again

Try to understand why

Don't get so close to change my mind

-First Love, Adele

And that was how I found myself straddling Dean's chest two months later, stretching my hands out over the warm skin of his chest that I'd been forbidden to touch for years now. Tracing the scars, knowing where they come from. And gripping broad shoulders, a man's shoulders, as he rolled me over and pressed me into the mattress, teeth working determinedly on the curve of my neck. Leaving marks of my own in the shape of ten crescent nail marks biting into his skin, pale, but still warmer than mine. I pressed my chest up against his, arcing my back, looping a leg around his waist to rub against him as best I knew how with my clumsy, young body. He laughed against my throat and gently pulled my leg up higher before sliding his hands under my shirt.

It was only late at night, alone, that I would shudder as the knowledge of what exactly we were doing attempted to catch up to me. The dark plagued my mind with doubts, spirits I couldn't simply salt and burn. I squeezed my eyes tight as they whispered that, perhaps, there was something wrong with us in the first place, beyond Hunting and death. If, perhaps, the reason the demon had killed my mother was-

But I was a Winchester, and Winchesters knew how to keep secrets, even from themselves.

The ability to touch, and be touched, was something that never failed to astound me. Curled up on a dusty motel bed, feeling my brother's arms wrapped around me, his heart beating at my back, I wondered how people lived with anything else. Because this was everything. The trust of best friends, the intimacy of lovers, and the forever of family. I breathed it in, and somehow the smell made my heart swell a little.

My father, as always, knew nothing. We weren't careful, we didn't have to be. Despite the fact that he could track a demon with nothing but a series of obscure omens, he was surprisingly blind when it came to the two of us. As long as we Hunted well enough, as long as we trained hard enough, he cared little for what we did with the rest of our time. And if he noticed that Dean had stopped smoking, because I couldn't stand the scent in my bed, or that we spent even more time together than we had previously, he didn't say a word.

The next two years were a dizzying mix of my best attempts at normalcy, mixed with a life that wouldn't even be considered acceptable by the rest of the world. I studied, I fought with my father, I held off the poltergeist while my father and brother cleansed the corners of the house, I trembled as I slithered down to the end of the bed and took Dean into my mouth with all the nervousness of any sixteen-year-old giving a blow-job for the first time. His gasps rang in my mind, even as he held himself still, so careful, so aware of me and my comfort, even when it was supposed to be all about his.

My first time was in the backseat of the Impala and as I watched him move above me, all I could think of was my first real memory, staring at the reflection of my brother's hair, always watching him, just as I was watching him now, the sunlight filtering down on him, because... because- because!

I hadn't thought of anything other than that life, of being able to do anything other than that life, until my senior year of high school started. We'd settled down for a few months, because I'd whined enough to Dad, and then used my puppy dog eyes on Dean so he would aid my cause. Realistically, he would've done it anyways, but I liked the way he manhandled me afterwards, as if he really would do anything for me if I looked at him with wide eyes and wishes. And suddenly, everything became about college, about 'the next step', furthering one's education. I came home with college packets that I stuffed under my bed, afraid to show anyone, even Dean, what I was thinking. It was an impossibility, I knew, but I couldn't stop myself from spending hours on the internet scoping out potential schools, looking at courses. Wondering what I would choose to do, if I really had that choice.

It was October of that year that I missed my period.

I always kept diligent track of when I would be on my period, because Hunting was especially painful on those days and I'd learned that if I brandished the calendar at my father, it would make him automatically back off. Unfortunately, even my father knew periods were once monthly, so it only worked for a few days of the month, but it was better than nothing. So, when one day slipped by, and then two, and then three, I began to panic. Because it could only mean one thing.

I watched Dean out of the corners of my eyes, no longer with interest, but with a sick sort of dread. Because how could I tell my older brother, my wary, charming older brother, that I might be pregnant. And that it might be his. Because I was sleeping with my brother, and oh god, there were reasons it was wrong, reasons people didn't cross this line.

I couldn't tell him, and if he noticed the panic in my eyes, he knew better than to mention it. Dean wasn't one for talking about emotions, that was my job, and if anyone was going to bring it up, it was going to be me.

Instead, I snuck out one night, blue hoodie wrapped tightly around me as I jogged to the nearest convenience store. I had to know, I had to know immediately, because waiting for a late period or the next month was going to kill me. I bought three tests, hands shaking as I shoved them down on the counter, and didn't look up at the cashier, whose sneer could be heard in the way he said, "Twenty-one ninety-five." Hood around my face, I dashed out of the store, and climbed back in the window of the room I could call mine for a month or so. I took all three tests, and it wasn't until I saw a little red negative sign on each one that I slumped over the toilet and vomited into it.

On our next hunting trip, I was pale and weak-kneed, still shaken from my own near miss. I was tasked to watching one James Elvins as my brother and father went after the spirit that had been taking vengeance against his family. For someone in such a remarkable situation, he was surprisingly calm, taking in my dark braided hair, dimple, and the gun I held steadily in hand. "So, this is what you do?" he asked, and I could understand that he wanted to think about anything but what was at hand.

"Yes." My hands tightened on the gun and I shifted, letting my stance loosen so I wasn't strung as tight as a violin string.

Quieter now. "Is it what you want to do?"

I risked a glance back. No one had ever asked me that. No one had ever had much of an opportunity. "It's what I have to do. Its the family business, I guess you could say." Even I couldn't delude myself into thinking there wasn't a strong note of bitterness there, if not a whole symphony.

"How old are you?"

I took in Mr. Elvins again, and once I was reassured that he didn't mean anything perverse by it, I answered. "Seventeen. I turn eighteen this coming summer."

"Well then," and his voice made it sound like that settled something. "You won't have to do much of anything for very much longer."

I got out my college application packets that night. Fiddling with the end of my braid, I wasn't sure I'd have the courage to go through with it. How could one James Elvins understand that this was my entire existence, that I didn't have anything outside of my father, my brother, and the Hunt? Then I thought of the pregnancy tests that I'd burned to an ash in the bathroom trashcan, and how it felt every time my family went on a Hunt without me. Knowing they might not come back. And wouldn't it be easier...

Pen went to paper. Keys clacked on my laptop. Six months later, I got my acceptance to Stanford. And I accepted that life, that normal life, in return.

Two days before I left, I finally told my family. I'd been planning, packing what little I had, for months now. I'd signed up for classes and scoped out textbooks. I knew who my roommate was, a girl named Jessica Moore, preferred being called Jess. I held that knowledge in my mind's eye as I stood in front of them and firmly told them that I'd decided to go to college, do something real with me life, and couldn't they understand that?

The fight was explosive. My father's words had always been harsh, blunt and dry, but I couldn't help cringing back as he snarled and told me that if I walked out that door, I'd best not come back. My eyes burned and vision blurred, but I held my head up and refused to cry. I'd never accepted being weak before, and I wasn't about to show it in front of my father, not in a time like this. I spun away from him, grabbed the two duffles I had always lived out of, and stalked out of our apartment, storming down the block. I would've walked to the bus station if that's what it had taken. But I soon heard the purr of the Impala as it pulled up beside me and I turned to see Dean, not looking at me, but always there beside me. As I slid into the car, I could almost see the two of us in the back, together there so many times, a lifetime of images and memories.

"Dean," I said, and my voice trembled with emotion. "Dean," trying to touch his arm.

He jerked away from my touch. "Don't." His eyes were fixed on the road, as watery as mine were. "Don't, Sam."

And that was how I said goodbye to my brother. At eleven, we reached the bus station. He got out the front seat and carried my bags in. Paid for my ticket. Saw to it that I was seated on a bench in front of where my transport would pick me up. Took one last look.

I tried again. "Dean."

"Don't." And he walked away. Leaving me there, the same way I was leaving him with Dad. He didn't even try to talk me out of it or change my mind, like I'd thought he would. Just left, accepting defeat in a way that was so unlike Dean that I finally cried, dampness sinking into the rough cargo of my duffle bags.


	5. Chapter Four

It's not okay to make you wait

To make you wonder why I

Can't hold you close or give you hope

-Gotta Figure This Out, Erin McCarley

The California sun shone just as bright as all the songs said as I stepped off the bus for the first time in hours, turning my face to the light in hopes that it would dry the tear tracks that seemed permanently etched into my cheeks. I felt the absence of my gun keenly as I hunched my shoulders, pushing through clumps of strangers that talked too loud and smiled too wide. The taxi ride to Palo Alto took the rest of my spare change, and I realized I didn't have a job, didn't have a fallback if it all went terribly wrong. There was no one standing between me and the world anymore. I thought about calling to tell my brother that I'd arrived safely, but I realized as soon as I flipped open my phone that one word from his mouth would have me running back home. So I slipped my cell into my duffle again and trekked towards my dorm.

Jess was nice, sweet, almost six foot with long blonde hair and too many piercings in her ears. I kept getting distracted by the play of light on the shiny metal, even as she talked in a chiming voice, exclaiming over my lack of baggage, my hair, Stanford, god, the whole world. I truly unpacked my bags for the first time as I listened to her chatter, focusing on breathing, because it still felt like the world was falling apart without my brother at my side.

That night, I would have sat fidgeting in our room, if Jess hadn't grabbed my arm with that bright smile of hers and said, "Come on" pulling me out the door and into the street. She took me to a bar a mile away where they didn't check our IDs, and clinked our bottles of beer together. "To getting away," she said, and suddenly she came into focus for me, and I noticed her green eyes, nearly the same shade as mine. I let myself smile back.

Beer barely glazing her eyes, she told me about her single mother, who ran a website in their garage where she was paid for stripping a minute at a time. Her little brother, strung out on heroin, who she just couldn't take care of anymore. "It was killing me," she said, "I just wanted normal", and I wondered if anyone liked the life they'd been dealt, if the world was filled with teens like me, who felt that deserved something else.

"What about you?" she asked, pretty glass green eyes innocent and warm, but I couldn't give her anything in return, because I was a Winchester and we kept our secrets, just a brief shrug and a muttered explanation. Something about being thrown out, vague and nondescript, but she nodded sympathetically and patted my shoulder. "We're going to stick together Sam," she said, "Because kids like us have to stick together."

And we did. Even though I was pre-law and she was an artist. Even as other friends came and went, Zach and Rebecca and too many others to name. Even as I suffered through the first months without my brother as if someone had died, and in a fit of desperation tattooed his initials into my left hip. Even after our first year as roommates ended, and we signed up to be together for a second year. We were Jess and Sam, Sam and Jess, because it appeared I couldn't be myself unless I was so utterly connected to someone that I couldn't see anything else.

It only made sense, seeing what had happened before, that two years after we met, sitting in the same old bar, those pretty green eyes moved closer to mine and then we were kissing.

Not Dean, I thought to myself. I'd kissed other people in the past two years, had sex with other people, dated, tried to be normal, but I'd never been bothered comparing them to my brother. Not Dean, I thought as I pressed into Jess, smelling her vanilla perfume, feeling her soft blonde hair under my hands. The complete opposite of Dean, and perhaps that was just what I needed. Nothing like him, and yet she was the only person I'd felt nearly as close to. Nearly.

She pulled back, smile shiny, and my heart squeezed in my chest. "I was hoping you felt the same," she said in a shy voice that didn't belong on her, because she was Jess, strong and confident. "I've been hoping for a long time." She grabbed my wrist again, dragging me back to the apartment we'd agreed to share for the next two years, pulling me into bed with her. Our time together was nothing but sweetness, nothing but softness. I'd had too little of those in my life.

The next morning, I sat looking down on her and wondered what exactly this was, that had drawn me to her so immediately. Even though I'd never wanted a girl before, despite having to sit through hours of Dean enumerating their many assets. "Jess," I tried out her name in my mouth, hearing the new sounds and intonations to it.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled, lazy and sugary, and there was absolutely nothing about her that reminded me of my brother. "Sam," she replied and kissed my ankle. I let myself fall back into bed and into her and I'd never felt farther from my former life.

Later, I asked her about the whys of it. The whys of me, even though she'd had boyfriends before, tall, muscular men to take care of her. She just smiled, like she had it all figured out and pulled me to stand against her, our hips rubbing together. "It's not about that," she said, biting at her lip like it was hard to explain. "I just think... People are just souls, souls in shells. And I love your soul, so it doesn't matter the shell it comes with."

I blinked for a few seconds and then kissed her hard, because I couldn't let myself think that by her reasoning, what Dean and I'd had was okay, alright, because siblings was just a shell of a word of this existence.

No one was surprised on campus, when we walked in the next school year, holding hands and clutching each other tight. Because, as Zach put it, we'd always been Sam and Jess, and this didn't change that. Our group of friends had drinks to that in our bar, getting giggly drunk and stumbling home.

That was one of the times I thought I saw my brother. I knew Dean had to be around, because he'd never been able to leave me alone without looking back occasionally, ensuring I was still there, still safe. And there were always jobs in California, because it was a big state and spirituality ran deep there. Sometimes I spotted them out of papers, recognizing the signs. The first few times, my hand flew to my phone before I remembered that it wasn't my job anymore, I didn't Hunt anymore, and I had to just let this go. I'd left my guns and knives at home, and all the sinewy muscle in my body only remained because I could never stop running. Latin spells fell out of my head, and eventually I forgot the precise ways to trap a demon or break a curse. Salt became something edible instead of my only protection, and as I cuddled with Jess at night, I tried to remember that this was the point, that I couldn't be guilty.

It was in our last year at Stanford, that I began to have dreams. Dreams of Jess dying on the ceiling, body molten with fire.


	6. Chapter 6

You said I know you couldn't sleep tonight

As if I didn't know that 'cause I was there

And a huge ball of consequence unwound itself in a dream

Of a dreamer

-Flying Backwards, The Megan Slankard Band

Dreams were just dreams, I told myself, because that's all I could tell myself. Having your mother killed in your nursery above your head is bound to mean you'll have plenty of nightmares in years to come. I shook it off, burrowing into Jess as she slept, nestling into her long blonde hair.

Halloween. Halloween and Jess in a nurse's costume, high heels and a short skirt, taller than me by a mile and making me feel bad for just wearing my customary jeans, jacket, and 'butch boots', as she called them. Just us out at our bar with our friends, taking shots with Tyler, who was a complete goof. I brushed off their compliments when Jess bragged about me. "Crazy good," she said, her eyes all dark in the lighting and I wanted to kiss her. I imagined telling Dean, and I could just see the little smile he'd get, the I'm-proud-of-you-even-if-I-don't-really-get-it look, and then pushed it out of my head. Went in for that kiss.

That night we stumbled into our bed, a little tipsy, laughing as we kissed each other silly. Wicked smile and a "how 'bout I take care of you" in her nurse's costume, and then her fingers were sliding into my shorts and I gasped, pressing closer to her as she worked her fingers in me with this look on her face, like this was it for her, like it was everything, and I shut my eyes because it reminded me too much of leather and the back of a car and sunlight.

We fell asleep with our hair entangled, blonde against brown, and I was surprised when long dormant instincts woke me up in the middle of the night at a loud crack.

Sliding out of our bed, I only had time to wish I had a baseball bat, or that I'd actually bothered to keep up with my fighting besides a few punches and roundhouse kicks at my gym's punching bag. I kept my back to the wall, highly aware of how I was just in a t-shirt and sleep shorts, no bra, hair down and vulnerable to any dirty tricks any enemy might move. I saw a shape move, coming out of the kitchen and I flung myself forward, attacking from the back. The figure whirled around and I was ducking punches, slamming in low blows and kicks, until my opponent caught hold of one and pinned me to the ground, hand around my neck. I swallowed and felt silver. Then, "Easy tiger."

I actually looked for the first time. "Dean?" My brother, cocky smirk and leather jacket, and I couldn't believe I hadn't known who he was from the first brush of skin against skin. I squirmed under his weight, thinking Jess, and my expression must've been enough for him to get off, pulling me up. "What're you doing here?" Because he'd never actually shown himself to me before, the other times he'd stopped by to check up. Something was wrong.

"Sam?" The light flicked on and there was Jess in the doorway, in her Smurf's shirt. Jess and Dean, in the same room, and I thought I just might explode from the wrongness of it. "Sam?"

"Jess." Jess and Sam. "Jess, this, uh-" I paused to look up at my brother, his broad shoulders, eyes fixed with incredulity on Jess. "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."

Her face now mirrored Dean, and I couldn't help but think maybe she wasn't the opposite of him, but the nearest thing I could find. "Your brother Dean?"

"Your girlfriend?" He raised his eyebrows at me, waggling them a little, but under the suggestion, I saw genuine shock. Whether it was because I was with someone else or that she was a girl, I wasn't sure. Maybe both. He yanked his eyes away from me to drift over her frame. "Nice meeting you. I mean, really nice." There was a flash of old Dean there, in the leer in his voice. "But I've got to talk to Sammy about private family stuff, so-"

I couldn't stand the hurt on Jess's face, the realization that there was a part of me she didn't have. I strode over to her, curling into her side. "You can talk about it in front of Jess."

I challenged my brother with my eyes. I am not yours, I thought, and maybe he got the message because he shoved his hands in his pockets and said, "Dad hasn't been home in a few days." Not a big deal, not a big deal. "He's out on a Hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days."

Maybe Jess couldn't hear the capitalization, but I could and I stiffened. "Jess, excuse us, please." I sent her a look, I'll-tell-you-later, even if it was a lie and she nodded and left the room, glancing once backwards at Dean with a wariness in her eyes. As if this was the end of everything. And maybe it was, because I wasn't sure how I would be able to keep her in the forefront of my brain now that my brother was here, tall and reliable as always, standing between me and the rest of the world.

The moment she left, I tried to explain, how I just couldn't go back, I've got a life here Dean, a girlfriend, an interview on Monday. He looked at me with those level green eyes, mouth twisted in derision. And silently asked if safe was more important than family. I managed to hold off until:

"I can't do this alone, Sam."

"Yes you can."

"Yeah... But I don't want to."

Head hung down to the side, he looked sideways at me with those eyes. Please Sam, they said. I shook my head, staring down at dark curls of my hair. It'd been forever - like riding a bike my ass - I might not be any good, and Dean was still waiting-

"I have to be back by Monday."

I packed up my suitcases with my darkest clothes, the set of knives I'd kept on me even after giving up the Hunt, because safe was better than sorry, and Dean had bought them for me. I pressed a hand to my left side, stroking the two letters that made up his initials, hidden below the line of my jeans. Turned smiling to Jess and tried to ignore the dreams I'd had of her on the ceiling. I told her it was just a few days, to make sure my father was okay. She asked me where I was going and I tried to disguise the fact that I was lying through my teeth.

In the car, with my brother. "Girlfriend?"

I pressed my face to the glass window of the Impala, avoiding looking at the backseat with all my might. "Yeah. Girlfriend."

Dean clicked his tongue and shook his head, but didn't say anymore. We drove quiet through the night until I fell asleep to the roar of the Impala's engine.

We didn't talk. Or we did, but it was only surface, what anyone else would see as friendly sibling banter and teasing, but what accounted for practically a cold shoulder between the two of us. Dean was annoying as fuck, always could be if he wanted to, and he was shoving it in my face, little comments here and there to remind that I had left and that his world had gone on without me. I wasn't his everything anymore. I bitched back, stung him right back.

And then we got out on that bridge. It was dark, it was night, and that meant I couldn't quite see the planes of his face, had to go off the tone of his voice, the rise and fall of his words. So when he turned on me, and asked if this is what I really wanted, the suburban dream of white picket fences, I bit my tongue at the tiny sting of injury in his voice as I vehemently rejected what he'd spent his whole life becoming. Training me to become.

"I'm not like you, Dean. This isn't going to be my life. Girls aren't even supposed to be Hunters, remember?" My one defense, but Dad and Dean had never bought it.

He spun away, avoiding confrontation like the plague. It was my job to have these fights with Dad, not him. "You're not just a girl, Sammy. You've got responsibilities-"

I was sick and tired, and I used the worst words I could find to drive my brother away. "To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. What difference would it make? Even if we find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."

If I were a man, I have no doubt he would have hit me. But I was a girl, and I was his little sister, and so he grabbed my hair and yanked my head up to face him. His lips were pressed together, fire burning in his eyes, turning them black. I wondered how much of the fury there was because of what I'd said, and how much was simply because I had left. He leaned down to get in his face, and I could feel his breath on my face as he said, "Don't talk about her like that."

Don't talk about Jess like that, I wanted to say back, but the Woman in White appeared and it all went to hell.

We took care of her, wiped her out like Dean was so sure we could, and he was right. It was like riding a bike. All instincts and knowledge that I'd grown up knowing and it came rushing back at the slightest invitation. "You know, we made a helluva team, back there," he said. But I shook my head, dismayed by another set of coordinates and knowing I had to return. Return to Jess. So I went home.

And that was the second night I felt blood dripping down on my face.

Dean pulled me out of the fire, and I didn't ask how he knew I was in danger, because some truths I didn't - couldn't - question. I stood huddled on my own, avoiding the five scratches I'd left on his cheek when he'd tried to hold me, comfort me. I watched my apartment go up in flames, and the normal life I'd wanted with it. I saw Jess on the ceiling, those wide green eyes, and I shook with it. I stared blankly at the Impala.

"We've got work to do."


End file.
